Comment by johnnyfaehell | Hacker News Reader

Comment by johnnyfaehell | Hacker News Reader

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> I'd love to see bbc reports on each day of Assange's hearings, in the sort of detail they did for Depp's case. But for some reason they are not reporting it. I wonder why?

Because no one cares? The BBC is there to provide a service to the public, if the public doesn't care about a court case why would there be lots of articles? There was lots of interest in the Johnny Depp case, not because people cared who was right and who was wrong but it was scandal and scandal is so popular there are lots of trashy news outlets that just handle scandal. While the Assange case is largely boring, we know he did X,Y,Z because he publically boasted about it, legally he is to be treated as he is innocent until found guilty but we know he did it because he said he did it repeatedy. We know these are crimes in the US. Now it's the boring details of can he be sent to the US which doesn't really affect people and rather hard to understand without putting a bit of effort into it. It's not light reading.

> Because no one cares? The BBC is there to provide a service to the public, if the public doesn't care about...

Unfortunately in Britain, the BBC largely decides what people care about, or are even aware of.

> Unfortunately in Britain, the BBC largely decides what people care about, or are even aware of.

I would disagree with that. There are multiple massive news outlets, majority of which have a larger user base for their online offering than the BBC. For Televised news it is very popular but again not a monolopy. This is getting the same level of coverage on all outlets because the interest from the public on what seems to be a very legally techincal trial is not high. There will be lots of coverage once there is an outcome but for the most part of on-going cases unless it's a scandal involed the average person only cares about the outcome.

"We know these are crimes in the US". Except if he is a journalist they are not. He is being politically prosecuted by the current US administration to force him to be silent on Russia's role in the 2016 election.

I think Assange is very much not a good person, and feel that he absolutely attempted to influence the election in Trump's favor, something I am very against. With that said, the man is being prosecuted for political, not legal cause. Snowden should be pardoned and charges dropped against Assange.

"sent to the US which doesn't really affect people" the exact opposite is true, this case can have a very real effect on US whistle blowers, a group of people who play a vital role in keeping the government and corporations honest.

The computer crimes he is charged with don’t depend on whether the suspect is a journalist or not. And really freedom of the speech and press also apply to everybody, not just journalists.

Edit: where am I wrong here?

> "sent to the US which doesn't really affect people" the exact opposite is true, this case can have a very real effect on US whistle blowers, a group of people who play a vital role in keeping the government and corporations honest.

These are not people of the UK who are paying for the BBC. The BBC is providing a service to the people of the UK. While it is useful worldwide, it's utmost service is to the people of the UK who are by in large forced to pay for it. Hence, why a large precentage of the population of the UK don't care. There will be people who care but mostly people don't.

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